


Is It Really Kidnapping If The Child Is A Cat? I Think Not

by Raindropsonwhiskers



Series: DeCat AU [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: (one kitten), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Cats, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Just Add Kittens, Kidnapping, Looms (Doctor Who), Multi, but its cool its for the best, so many characters - Freeform, sorry but theyre there, susan doesnt have a canon long gallifreyan name so I made one, time lords are eldritch cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:41:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raindropsonwhiskers/pseuds/Raindropsonwhiskers
Summary: In which the Deca sort of steal a kid from the Lord President, then run away from Gallifrey together.
Relationships: The Deca - Relationship
Series: DeCat AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1967464
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Is It Really Kidnapping If The Child Is A Cat? I Think Not

Theta sort of wishes he could say it was an accident. That he just so happened to find a kitten while in the Lord President's house for completely unrelated reasons. If asked by any authority figure, that's what he would say, though he doubts it would be particularly believable. After all, getting past the many security measures requires a decent amount of planning and preparation. Probably the most incriminating part, however, would be that he didn't do so alone.

"Okay, we've got the kit, how do we get back out?" Drax hisses.

"Out the window?" Mortimus suggests. "We're parked right near it."

"And there's about a dozen alarms that'll go off if we do," Theta replies. "We need to go out the front."

"Oh, sure, that's not suspicious at all." Drax makes his voice high and pitchy in a mocking imitation of Theta. "'Scuse us Lord President, sir, we'll just go out your front door carrying your Loomling in our hands, don't mind us."

"Do you have a better idea?" Theta snaps. "Because I am open to suggest-"

A squeaky meow stops him mid-sarcastic remark. In his arms, the kitten shifts and stretches, mouth opening in a tiny yawn. She snuggles closer to Theta's chest and makes a sound that seems to be a miniscule attempt at a purr. He feels his hearts absolutely melt.

"-suggestions," he finishes in a whisper. "Look, if you really want to risk it, we can do the window. But when we all get thrown in prison for the rest of our regenerations, I'm blaming you."

"Fine," Mortimus sighs. "Front door it is, then. Let's go."

Quietly, carefully, Drax cracks open the door of the nursery and leads the way out into the corridor. They creep through the ornate halls, footfalls light and nearly silent. It's less stealthy to use their humanoid forms, but if they need to run - which they almost certainly will - then the longer legs are a plus.

Sure enough, as they reach the bottom of a flight of stairs to the ground floor, an alarm begins to blare. Someone has noticed the Loomling's disappearance, and the three thieves are on borrowed time.

They exchange a quick glance, then take off. Theta does his best to tuck the kitten into the crook of his arm as he goes, trying not to jostle her as he sprints down the hall. She squeaks again and digs needle-sharp claws into his skin after he turns a sharp corner, but that's the least of his worries at the moment.

The opulent entry hall of the house swings into view as Theta rounds another turn, and he's so close to escaping he can nearly taste it. He can hear Drax and Mortimus behind him - and the booted footsteps of the guards behind them. The distinctive, grating whine of sonic weapons powering up fills his ears, and Theta _lunges_ for the doorway. It turns into a bit of impromptu gymnastics, tucking and rolling quickly out of the open space and pressing himself against the wall until the sonic blasts have passed. A moment later, both Drax and Mortimus have followed him out, Drax slamming the door shut behind him in the face of the guards.

The three of them waste no time in dashing for their TARDIS, parked just around the corner of the house. Behind them, the sound of splintering wood indicates that the guards have gotten the door open again, after a fashion.

And then the TARDIS, disguised as one of the elaborate statues of Rassilon that dot the grounds, opens her doors, and they sprint into the console room. The doors snap shut again, and Theta breathes a sigh of relief. They're safe.

"Did you get her?" Koschei demands, stepping away from the console to look them over.

Theta gently pulls the tiny bundle of patchy tortoiseshell fur from where she clings to his shirt, and she squeaks in protest at the loss of warmth. "Yeah. Barely. Guards nearly caught us."

"Who suggested that we go through the front door again?" Mortimus asks, still slightly out of breath. "Because I seem to recall a certain blond idiot doing just that."

"It worked, didn't it?" Theta retorts. "Nobody's captured or dead, and we got the kit."

Mortimus rolls his eyes, but doesn't say more. Drax pats him on the shoulder consolingly.

"Are you done chatting?" Vansell calls. "Because I'm pretty sure the guards just left to get equipment to break down our shields, so let's go. We need a few extra hands to pilot."

Right. They're only safe in the TARDIS as long as her shields hold, and while they can withstand most things in the known universe, the Lord President's guards have the technology to make it _most,_ not _all._ The quicker they get off Gallifrey, the better.

Koschei and Drax join the others at the controls, but Theta hangs back, resigning himself to babysitting during the flight. He shifts, curling an extradimensional limb around the kitten to support her as his hands become paws and he loses his hold on her. Then he takes her by the scruff, teeth gentle on the fur as he carries her over to one of the couches.

With eight people steering - and Mortimus operating the jerryrigged dimensional cannon that's letting them fly their TARDIS on Gallifrey in the first place - it's a smooth ride. If it weren't for the adrenaline still draining slowly out of his system, Theta would find it easy to fall asleep.

Then the TARDIS lands with a soft thud, and everyone apparently decides that they need to get a look at the Loomling for themselves.

"She's so little," Millennia says softly, sitting next to Theta and stroking a finger down the kitten's side. "Hard to believe she's related to…"

She trails off, leaving the sentence unfinished. Not as though it matters - they all know what she means. After all, the ancestry of the sleepy little kitten clinging to Theta's fur is precisely why they kidnapped her in the first place.

Ancestry is a very vague concept for Time Lords, along with other familial relations more complicated than sharing a House; when genetics are so tightly controlled and yet so distant, it's only natural. But there are some genetic contributors that are harder to ignore than others. Rassilon, the Founder of Gallifrey himself, for instance.

Technically, the current Lord President's seat isn't the result of nepotism and his connection to Rassilon, though only because nobody would be brave enough to say it. But the High Council was still brave enough to give an order to the Lord Burner for the death of him and his family, so perhaps that doesn't really mean much.

Theta had caught wind of the plot during a chance meeting with his brother, though he doesn't doubt that Braxiatel carefully orchestrated it. The wording of an offhand phrase - "ensuring the health of the Lord President is as desired" - was just enough to pique Theta's curiosity, and after a few more innocuous words from Brax about remembering Theta as a kitten, he had put the pieces together. Brax's motivations are, as always, a mystery, but Theta does know how to take a hint.

After a little bit of digging and some light treason, Theta gathered his friends together to make a proper plan. They'd all wanted, on some level, to explore the universe unimpeded by the restrictions of Gallifrey, and this was as good an excuse to do so as any. Sure, it would burn every remaining bridge they had and get them branded as renegades for the rest of their lives, but none of them had a particularly strong attachment to their home planet to begin with. In a way, it's freeing.

"What's her name?" Magnus asks. "I know it's Arkytior-something."

"Arkytiorallivinerre," replies Ushas.

"Right, yes, that." Magnus nods his thanks.

Mortimus winces theatrically. "Poor kit."

Again, silence, unsure of what to really say in the wake of such an event. They've just condemned themselves to a life on the run, a life spent taking care of a child none of them have the first idea of how to raise, a life fraught with risk and the potential for death. The easy back-and-forth the ten of them so often share feels… inappropriate at the moment.

One by one, the rest of them shift. The long, narrow couch is better suited to their humanoid forms, but somehow, everyone manages to squish next to Theta regardless. It's a more somber echo of long hours spent in a soft, happy pile together after classes and homework were finished; they've grown since then, and so have their responsibilities.

"We're going to need somewhere better to hide than here," Rallon points out, finally breaking the silence. "They're going to be looking for us."

"Nowhere with long-distance space travel," Vansell says. "We don't want someone figuring out who we are and being able to contact Gallifrey."

Theta starts to say something, then stops. Without raising his head from where it rests against Theta's side, Koschei presses a hint of soothing-curious warmth into his mind. Twitching his tail anxiously, Theta says, "If it comes down to it, we could use the Chameleon Arch."

"That's a last resort," Millennia insists. "We didn't escape Gallifrey to live as- as _humans_ for the rest of our lives."

"Oh, that's it!"

Theta's exclamation startles Arkytiorallivinerre awake, and she goes wide-eyed at the sight of so many other Gallifreyans. With an adorable amount of determination, she stands up and toddles off of Theta, clambering onto everyone else and purring at them. When she's gone to everyone once - and doubled back to Magnus at least twice, seemingly entranced with his matching tortoiseshell coat - she curls up again on top of Theta again and falls back to sleep.

"As I was saying," Theta says, quieter. "We could hide on Earth, before humans discover space travel. We look like Earth species, and nobody will think to look there of all times."

"And what, we raise her as a human child?" Ushas' mind drips with disdain at the suggestion.

"No, of course not. But we can raise her like a _person,_ " he says. "Not like a pawn in her family's games. We can take her on adventures and teach her everything ourselves and when she's old enough, we can travel more often." He tries to calm his excitement a little bit, keeping his voice quiet to avoid waking the kitten again. "It's only a few decades, and hopefully by then the Lord President will be dead and no one will care anymore."

"It's a few decades on Earth, though," Jelpax points out.

Mortimus scoffs. "I'd trade a few _centuries_ on Earth to have avoided growing up on Gallifrey any day."

"Me too," Magnus says. "I, for one, don't think she's really going to miss out much by not staring into a rip in the fabric of reality before her mind has actually put itself together properly as some sort of litmus test of her future."

"And I agree - I'm just saying, you guys have a very bad track record when it comes to keeping yourselves entertained in non-destructive ways," Jelpax replies. "Earth might be a bad idea."

"'You guys'?" Millennia repeats, incredulity flashing green and yellow across her mind. "I'm sorry, who accidentally set fire to his dorm room because he thought the assignment for Quantum Engineering was too easy and decided to be a showoff about it? Because it wasn't Theta, for once."

Theta lifts his head and scowls at her. "Hey, I never once set fire to my dorm by _accident,_ okay? When I did so, it was entirely intentional."

That's not technically a lie, though there had been one incident with a blanket, four dozen candles, and some very poorly planned attempts at mood lighting that he really should have seen coming, and thus counts as intentional.

"So you could have, say, warned your roommate about it beforehand so he could get his stuff out?" Koschei asks, sugar sweet and deadly.

"Intentional doesn't mean premeditated," Theta retorts.

"We're getting off topic," Rallon says, cutting off any further escalation. "Should we go to Earth, or somewhere else?"

Drax flicks his ears back. "It's better than nothing."

"It's better than Gallifrey," Ushas mutters.

Agreement reached, they lapse into a far more comfortable silence than before. Theta feels Millennia drop off to sleep first, her mind softening and going hazy at the edges, and he soon drifts off as well. A slow, lazy purr rumbles in his chest as he closes his eyes and finally realizes that, for the first time in their lives, they're all free. A few decades on Earth until Arkytiorallivinerre is old enough, and then they can go anywhere, any _when,_ they want. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell the Warrior Cats books were a formative influence on me as a child?  
> Anyways, if you liked this, leave a kudos and/or a comment!  
> Now with some wonderful fanart!! https://bizarrekairaart.tumblr.com/post/637493853407019008/ive-only-had-millennia-and-the-decat-au-by


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